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Is that really right tho? Lets follow the waiter example. In order to skim the card number they'd have to put the card down, pull out a pen, and copy it. Likel
by enjo 16y ago
Is that really right tho?
Lets follow the waiter example. In order to skim the card number they'd have to put the card down, pull out a pen, and copy it. Likely within plain sight of their employees. With a skimmer they just discretely 'double swipe' the card and they got what they need. It certainly makes it a simpler attack vector.
Now you don't really need square to do this. There are plenty of magnetic card readers out there (I seem to recall someone got caught doing precisely this with a PDA of some kind). That doesn't mean that Square should make it simple. Why not provide some sort of encryption to the communications layer?
- Groxx 16y agoPeople have cell phones with cameras - just take a picture. Nobody would think it strange that they have a cell phone in-hand while walking around. What sort of encryption would you think they could do? And how much larger and more expensive would it make the reader? And where would it get enough power to perform the encryption (which MUST be asymmetric to be secure, or the key can be extracted from the device)? They'd lose all semblance of interoperability between devices, add a battery, add significant cost, and all to fight a bogus claim and do nothing to prevent someone from buying a standard, unencrypted card reader that isn't under fire.